NLA Conference 2013 - Truck Yeah!

It is official. We survived. But now I'm zonked.

The day went a little something like this.

Woke up at 4:30. Got all dressed up.

Yes, makeup was included.

Yes, my hair was down.

No, I didn't wear the boots.

Met up with the Queen of the Known Universe and the New Guy and left around 5:10 in our awesome truck.

Photo courtesy of the Queen herself.

I brought my music adapter so we could plug in our playlists. It was mostly country - by the Queen and I - with some oldies thrown in by the New Guy. It was actually amusing though because she turned on the truck when the New Guy pulled in the parking lot and She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy came on the radio so we blasted it and were singing like maniacs. Pretty sure it weirded the hell out of him.

It was a fun start to an amusing ride.

So we're on our way, and we decide to stop at McDonald's for coffee. And we thought we knew where it was but again, it's dark and we're more interested in our playlists than the road so we drove right past it without noticing. We actually ended up stopping at the Starbucks in my boyfriend's town.



That was approximately 5:55 AM.

Got my chai tea latte, the New Guy got some juice and we were on our way.

Was a fairly fast drive, and we found the place on the first try...sort of. I mean, we had to make a u-turn but after that it was smooth sailing.

I mean, technically it was the second u-turn of the day, but still smooth sailing.

The place was super fancy.



Yes, apparently I am one of those people.

Learned a lot throughout the day so that was good.

In the morning they did this demo with a 3D printer and some other cool gadgets. They actually showed us this webpage with a bunch of failed print jobs, it was highly entertaining. Superwoman and the Boss's Boss's Boss's Assistant were right in front of me and thought perhaps we could get one with a grant.

I'm gonna keep bugging them until we do, my teens would love it.

Unless of course it's me that has to submit the paperwork, then I'll have to think about it.

The next session was more fun gadgetry - Raspberry Pi and Arduino - want those, they are sweet.

After that we took a break to check out the booths. The New Guy and I went through and grabbed a bunch of free stuff - creepy cat bags included - and took pictures with the cast of the Big Bang Theory.

The cardboard version.

Last year they just had Sheldon, this year they had the whole cast, it was awesome.

Got a hug from the Library Goddess and caught up with a bunch of fun GA friends before I was forced into a picture with what seemed like half my class and two of the Mizzou professors.

Guess which newsletter that's going into. Yep. That's right. The one I used to be in charge of.

And had to scramble to find pictures for.

NLA season was easy though, there was plenty to work with. It was the off-season that makes you flail.

After the picture I escaped to learn about new online tools to use at the library. That one was packed, it should've been in a bigger room, but how can you tell really what's gonna be popular and what's not beforehand? Sat by the Queen, made colorful commentary and then we were off for lunch.

Also got lost on the way there, but that wasn't our fault. Google maps and GPS had it wrong. The Queen ended up getting out and asking the gas station attendant where it was. I was glad we decided to take the truck. We could have walked but we would have just ended up walking in circles for even longer.

Carlos O'Kellys, had fajitas. They were awesome and I couldn't finish them.

We stalled a bit before heading back but made it before the keynote speaker had started. We actually sat against the back wall, also highly enjoyable.

She was really good. I wasn't expecting her to be good, I was kind of dreading it actually. Keynotes can drag on if you don't have the right speaker. But she was funny, which I also wasn't expecting. She was in politics and from the title it sounded like it was gonna be all about government stuff, but it wasn't about the shutdown at all.

Though she did reference it once or twice for comedy. We mostly talked about advocacy and what it can do for our libraries.

She did bring up a lot of amusing stuff. Apparently they did this survey about what was more popular than congress. One of these things is not like the other, name the item you think is less popular than congress:

Cockroaches
Ebola
Lindsey Lohan
France

It's France. Strangely cockroaches, Ebola and Lindsey are all more popular than congress but for some reason we take issue with France.

Makes perfect sense, right?

We also learned a lot about rat poison and bars. Two separate stories, neither were hers.

After the keynote I listened to current and past library students talk about the program. I enjoy sitting sidelines and making colorful commentary as I'm going through it as well. It's always fun to hear what they have to say. We were missing a major element to that equation though, the Authentically Amazing One and Only KB so it could have been even better. Had to take a picture next to an empty chair to photoshop her in.

Last session of the day was about technology in special libraries.

I went for two reasons: 1 because I'm doing my practicum at a special library, but mostly 2 because I wanted to make faces at the presenters who just happened to be some of my cool classmates.

The whole event felt like some weird family reunion, I kept running into classmates and old professors. It was good to see them all again.

That was the last session of the day so after even more pictures we hit the road to head back in our cool truck.

Here are a few of my favorites quotes from the day:

Me: "She has excellent taste in music."
Queen: "I wish I knew her before the accident."
if we were in an accident the medics would see our stack of awesome CDs to choose from. 

Me: "I like his pink hair, he's like the anti-president."
seriously, our nebraska library association president has pink hair. he's awesome. 

Speaker: "I know I look young, but I have 25 years of experience....yesterday was my birthday. I turned 30."
cool, hey wait...

Speaker: "I got a Master's in Legislative Affairs, it's not what it sounds like."
Queen: "I bet the field research would be fun."
more colorful commentary from the back row. 

"Rat poison, we hate it when kids lick it."
that's always a good thing to say when asking for funding. 

"I, state your name here."
"I, state your name here."
"That's the first time that's happened."
see, librarians can have a sense of humor. shocked the politician. 

"Gotta find that damn McDonald's."
and we did!

The last one is my favorite, the Queen and her daughter had a conversation earlier about birds that sit on the telephone wires and if they can listen in to conversations.
Me: Damn government birds.

And that was my day. Here are a couple of songs that made our playlists:

Truck Yeah - Tim McGraw


this was our theme song. it was both the first and last song played during our drive - sexy tractors didn't count as we were still stationary.

yes that is garrett hedlund in case you were wondering.

Pickup Man - Joe Diffie


see, I liked Joe Diffie before Jason Aldean came around and sang about him. just throwing that out there.

sorry. not a fan.

So that was NLA 2013. For previous years go here:

2011 Green Bags and Nametags
2012 Day One - the Full Monica
2012 Day Two - Fake it 'til you make it



Legitimate pre-midnight post. Holy crap tag in use.

"Stay in the car." "My four favorite words."

See, people make fun of me for buying those gimic protection plans for headphones, but they don't realize how many pairs of earbuds I go through in a month.

Today I took in 2 broken sets after work and got them both replaced for free, huzzah!

I love Best Buy.

Though the Geek Squad's customer service is loathsome.

Like, I know you have lines of people and you're busy, but perhaps if you picked up the pace a bit or focused on your own customer instead of your coworkers 4 other customers you would get things done a little bit faster and in a more organized manner.

Was second in line, stood there for half an hour before anyone talked to me.

Makes me proud of our customer service skills at my library.

Which a lady mentioned to my supervisor today. Said I was much more patient and helpful than a different branch and that she was going to start coming to us instead.

Rock solid man.


So today...

Was good.

Flew by fast.

Did my final Library Golf preparations for tomorrow, now all that's left is to pick up the clubs, set up the holes and hope for the best.

I'm hoping that a lot of teens show up to participate.

But not like too many that will be overcrowded and overdramatic.

Or ones that think it's dumb and make fun of our arrangements.

I guess we shall see.


Other highlights include more training and special guest star visits from an old professor and the Authentically Amazing One and Only KB.

Whom I haven't seen in like months but we need a girls night.


And that's really all I remember about today. Oh, I uploaded my Summer Reading Kickoff pictures.

Yep, now that's all I remember about today.


Carter and I are jamming.

Watched Holly get eliminated on The Voice - called it, ugh Swon Brothers move on again.

Cassaddee Pope - my pick for last season's winner and actual winner - made a guest appearance unveiling her new single.

Is country.

And see, if she had any other coach things would be completely different.


Now we've moved on to Chuck season one.

Okay, more like moved back to Chuck season one.

Cause the boyfriend is having a bad day which means I'm having a bad day so naturally I flew back to a comedy - oh speaking of comedies, and anther thing I had forgotten about today...

BossLady and I think we should install a movie night for staff morale - ha!

We're thinking Emperor's New Groove.

It's classic.

The old intern and I were discussing our favorite animated movies, we're both fans of Robin Hood and Aladdin.

Then of course I had to ramble about the whole half of the Disney princes don't even have names let alone lines spiel, go here: Sketch and Edit Watch a Movie

But I think Emperor's New Groove is probably the funniest just because of Kronk and David Spade.

I have no idea what his actual name is, I just call him Kronk when I see him.

Though "Kronk's New Groove" was horrible. Don't watch it.

Where was I?

Oh right, Chuck.

Watched it while I did more homework.

I'm loving this whole one credit class thing. There are no due dates for the homework, it's all just "get it done by the last day of the semester" aka like the end of July.

Though I'll probably do it all on some weekend and get it over and done with.

Discussion Boards for my other class may kill me, especially this week as there are three, but I'm trying to keep up.

But that's it for tonight. I'm exhausted and calling it.

Carter and I are gonna crash.


Music and I'm out.

Here are some of my favorites from Chuck:

Fortunate Son - Jeffster


Jeffster rocks it.

Get Outta My Dreams - Billy Ocean

yep. that's all I got.


Oh.

I found the bug.

But it's too high.

And all of my chairs move when I stand on them.

And you know me and movable chairs.

Dressers fall over.

I pass out.

Smash my foot.

They call the Dean and then the whole world knows.

And yesterday when I tried to reach and smash it I totally missed so it's gotta be watching out for me now.

stupid bugs.

NLA 2012 Day Two - Fake it 'til you make it

New life motto from BossLady but it's me through and through.

Fake it 'til you make it, like this morning waking up at 5:30 like I'm some sort of morning person.

Ha!

Pulled that one off.

And seemed all extroverted the entire conference so I'm calling it a victory.

It's amusing cause I'm like that at work too so people think it's my natural state.

Ha!

Right.

But I stayed awake all day on a single cup of coffee which was super impressive cause yesterday I had like three, though yesterday was much longer than today. Instead of a 6AM-9:45PM day like yesterday this morning I didn't leave until 6:30 and got back around 5ish.

I did get my picture taken with Darth Vader - myself, the Library Goddess and another classmate all did a group shot as well. We were loving it. And I took a picture of our Library Director Extraordinaire - aka Boss's Boss's Boss - with the Sheldon Cooper cutout which I will send to our IT department with her permission.

Though I do enjoy going around and taking pictures even if they did glare at me for walking in late and leaving early I did actually sit in on a few sessions today.

This morning I hit up the Google docs presentation with Slim Shady, then headed back to the booth for a couple rounds, and ate like 3 bagels somewhere between when I got there at 7:30 and noon.

Even though I didn't need to be there 'til 8, but I figured if I'd again run into traffic or run out of gas or lose a tire or something. You know, the stuff that happens on really big days when you need everything to go perfectly?

Anyway, so then there was lunch, they're spoiling us with all this good food now I gotta go back to real life. Gonna have to learn how to cook actual real food that's more than microwavable.

The afternoon I went to our Library Director Extraordinaire's presentation on the library's strategic plan for youth services. I figured since she's my boss and I work in youth services it might be a smart idea. I sat by the Authentically Amazing One and Only KB and one of the branch managers from LCL - represent! KB and I took some fun pictures, one of which is on Facebook already and I'll have to upload my stuff later. It was a "you look up i'll look down now make a face" kind of picture that's highly amusing.

Last session of the day was another fun one with Slim Shady - 2012 best young adult novels - lady from the Library Commission presented and I found it amusing cause the majority of her books on screen had LCL barcodes, woohoo!

Sometime before all that I helped the Library Goddess take down our booth stuff and we got to chat a bit. That woman knows everyone, good god. Except ONE PERSON! I got to introduce her to ONE of my colleagues and reveled in the moment when she came up blank. Anyway, I don't know how she got around the building cause people were stopping her every five feet. I think she got more hugs today than the average person gets in their lifetime and that's really a testament to her and how great a person she really is. I'm very grateful to have her to look up to and work with.

I can now say that about a lot more people after today as well. I got to jam out with some really cool people, some who I barely know their names, others who I talk to weekly and we still didn't even realize how much we have in common. But that happens when your classes are long distance and you only see each other once a month for a couple of hours and then go home. Moments like these are very helpful in that respect and you get to be in a room full of fellow nerds, who can ask for more really?

So I came home with my bag full of pens, t-shirts and posters. The thing about booths is that if you go around when everyone is tearing down they stick you with as much crap as they can so they don't have to pack it. So I got like 3 t-shirts today alone and a bunch of posters to hang up around the young adult area plus some sweet bookmarks as well. Oh and the Library Goddess shoved what was left of the candy into my pocket so now I've got like 10 jolly ranchers floating around somewhere as well.

Not sure what I'm going to do with everything. Lately I've been collecting pens - okay this is kind of a long story but I'll shorten it. Remember that I'm a nerd and I write stuff. Well, I attempt to write stuff - not this stuff, the blog doesn't count cause it's crap, did I write that outloud, my bad - anyway, I write stuff so I've started collecting pens and t-shirts, just anything with random designs or names or whatever cause I'll use them for ideas in my stories. Like you know you're blanking and you look at the writing utensil in your hand and see that it's from a funeral home, so you start writing that into your story, you know? Just random crap.

I did tell you I was a nerd.


For the music rec scroll down and listen to yesterday's cause it's still stuck in my head.

I'm out!

We're just like you, only prettier.

Geez, a girl has a crappy day and doesn't post for a couple days and you guys go all crazy.

Think I got more phone calls, texts, emails and Facebook messages than I got for the "life sucks and then you die" fiasco a few months ago.

Yes Thursday was for crap but it's not the reason I've been off the radar, I actually had some semblance of a life the past couple days. Don't worry, I won't be going off the grid anytime soon. Even if I am banished up north.

Friday: Worked 9-6, Fearless Leader is on her last few days so we got together at Slim Shady's place after. Though we were all super zonked out so booze cakes with the girls turned into order pizza, drink beer and vedge out of Slim Shady's couch. We turned on Hunger Games but as it was a library DVD it skipped out a few scenes in. We saw it in theaters so were going to throw out some commentary. Didn't really matter though, by the time it started skipping we weren't watching anyway. Spent the majority of the time talking and joking around. I'll miss that. Stupid Kansas.

Quotes of the night: 

-"How many library service associates does it take to find parking?"

-"How many library service associates does it take to roll up a window?"

-"Do you know what it's about?"
-"It has pretty pictures."

-"They had fancy pugs."
-"That's an oxymoron."

Since I had class the next morning and had to leave at 6:30 I figured getting back to my apartment past midnight was probably staying up late enough so I crashed figuring I would post the next day.

Didn't happen.

Saturday: First official day as a Graduate Assistant. Intro to Info Tech was supposed to start in the library at 8:30. As I'm the GA I got there at 8, which was actually good since when I showed up the doors were locked. I texted the Library Goddess and she came over like, "what?!" Yup, all doors locked even though they had just double checked on Thursday. Left us all flailing so we moved to the new building instead. However, since we moved and there was no advanced warning the Library Goddess stayed and directed people from there and I got to loiter in the hallway directing traffic in the building.

It was amusing cause one of the professors thought that I was lost cause I was like walking back and forth and I'm like, nope I'm good. Then she squints and was like, "oh you're _____ niece!" Yep, I get that a lot around there. It's rather amusing. The Cool Aunt is pretty popular.

Anyway, after the flailage was my first class of the semester. Also amusing is that my professor works for the same library system as I do so there was a lot of LCL references at which I had to smirk. It was a good class. She's a good teacher, skipped the parts that weren't necessary so we got out early.

Got to hand out some contact forms, today as well, along with library barcode numbers. And I got to erase a board and bring Library Goddess coffee....GA life is good.

Hey, it pays for my tuition. It's easy for now, there will be more in the upcoming weeks.

So early morning plus class meant I was pretty zonked by the time the boyfriend came over in the afternoon. But that's okay cause he was out as well. Basically watched part of the Hunger Games, some Wipeout, Shawshank, Silence of the Lambs - oh my god nightmare central, disgusting - and then some standup.

Did I mention we were zonked? By the time we looked at the clock it was far past midnight and since the weather was crap he slept here.

On the couch.

Though I don't know how much he actually slept since he works nights and sleeps days.

Sunday: Left around 11:30 for class today since I had to be there early again. Dressed up and all that, stopped for coffee, huzzah.

Reference 'til 4:30. Only 13 in the class so it was some good discussion. Yesterday's was 12, I'm liking these smaller class sizes but I guess that happens as you get farther into the program, similar to college.

Plus I know pretty much everybody there so that's cool. The Authentically Awesome One and Only KB is in it, along with one of our interns from this summer - she's in Info Tech with me as well - plus Sam who I've taken the last like 4 classes with. I think this is the first semester I don't have a class with David - face to face anyway, he is in my online one.

After that I came home, did some editing, watched some NCIS and jammed with Carter.

Though lately jamming with Carter has just been annoying. For this entire week straight all he does is bite. Like literally, I get home and I feed him and then he just keeps pouncing on me. I put him in the cage when it happens so it seems he spends more time in there then out here when I'm actually home. Frustrating. Will have to use my excellent reference skills to figure out what the heck his problem is.

So that was my weekend. Tomorrow is back to work, the same with the rest of this week. Will have to finish up that website, hopefully our tech guy will either approve it or tell me to change it and I can actually publish it before our first meeting.

Song of the day:

Only Prettier - Miranda Lambert
love the country music star cameos in that one.

Was totally jamming to that one on the way to the car after class and didn't hear the Authentically Awesome One and Only KB honk her car at me.

Yeah.

The headphones are loud.

Space Cadet says her hearing at 70 will be my hearing at 35. Actually I'm pretty sure that's in here somewhere.

It's okay, I caught her waving and we joked around for a while.

Was amusing, even though technically the AA1&O:KB - that's a tag for ya - left before I did she was in my rearview for most of the drive home. Only because the Cool Aunt taught me a shortcut for how to get out of there. Think I lost her around Gretna. Construction and all that.

Well, tomorrow is tomorrow so I'm going to crash.